Where Are the Most Beautiful Places in the World?

Beauty is a subjective trait — what is beautiful to one person may be detestable to another.

I’ve picked five of the most beautiful spots on Earth to highlight. This list is a mix of man made and natural beauty and contains five sites that no one could argue with.

Looking for a vacation to a truly unforgettable location? Any one of these spots would be the trip of a lifetime.

The Grand Canyon

The only American site on our list is maybe the grandest of all the natural beauty in the world.

Situated along the Colorado River in Arizona, the Grand Canyon is known exclusively for its scenery. The Canyon itself is about 300 miles long, and at different points in the canyon it is between 4 to 20 miles wide. The entirety of the canyon is about a mile deep.The Grand Canyon was created by the movement of the Colorado River over the past six million years.

The Grand Canyon is not the deepest canyon in the world but the sheer size of it and the beauty of its landscape make it one of the most famous. The Grand Canyon National Park was one of the first national parks in the country and it attracts millions of tourists a year.

Check out the Grand Canyon and enjoy a really varied experience. You can be sitting in winter snow at the rim of the canyon while the interior is experiencing desert conditions.

The Great Barrier Reef

Considered one of the natural wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef (which sits off the east coast of Australia) is the world’s largest coral reef.

The Great Barrier Reef is made up of more than 600 islands and coral cays, which means the reef covers an area of over 180,000 square miles.

Coral structures compose most of the reefs and island cays allow a variety of sea life to exist there. From turtles, to sharks, whales and dolphins you can see more wildlife per square mile here than anywhere else in the ocean. There are over 1500 different species of fish that live on the reef as well as 200 species of birds.

The Great Reef Marine Park is a popular tourist destination — millions of tourists visit this area every year. They come for sailing, SCUBA diving, and ultimately the natural beauty.

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is one of the best-known man made structures in the world. It is a mausoleum constructed by an Indian emperor, Shah Jahan, in memory of his favorite queen, Mumtaz Mahal. This mausoleum, located in Agra, is made of white marble. The Taj Mahal is not just spectacularly beautiful, it is considered the pinnacle of a certain period of Indian architecture.

The story of the Taj Mahal is part of the reason this site is one of the most beautiful on Earth. An Indian emperor was grieving over his third wife (Mumtaz Mahal) and decided to honor her memory with the largest and most beautiful mausoleum ever built. Twenty years after the plans were made, the Taj Mahal was finished. Besides the perfectly cut white marble, the entire mausoleum is covered in precious stones.

The Taj Mahal is now the tomb for Sha Jahan as well as his lover. About two million tourists come to see the Taj Mahal each year. This is a site that should be one everyone’s list of “Things To Do Before You Die”.

Machu Picchu
The name Machu Picchu means ‘Old Peak” and the site there in Peru lives up to the name. Machu Picchu was created by Incan peoples thousands of years ago. The site is part ancient city (carved out of stone) and part work of art, and must be seen to be believed.

Machu Picchu sits two thousand feet above the Urubamba river in Peru. The site is made up of stone ruins — baths, palaces, temples, and even small homes have all been perfectly preserved over time. Some of the individual carvings at Machu Picchu weigh over 50 tons. This is truly a beautiful and marvelous sight and really drives home the notion that human beings are capable of anything.

The Egyptian Pyramids

Last but not least on this list — the Pyramids of Egypt. The Egyptian pyramids are monuments to the dead.

The best-known and largest of Egyptian pyramids are the Pyramids at Giza, considered by many to bethe largest pyramids ever built. The beautiful and well preserved Great Pyramid at Giza took only 23 years to complete, and that is using a work force of somewere around 30,000 slaves and workers.

A trip to the Egyptian pyramids can not be surpassed. They stand both as a monument to the human spirit and as a thing of beauty for the world to enjoy.

This is part of a series of blog posts we’re publishing about the best places on Earth. The other posts in this series are: